Category Archives: Latest News
Samsung launches another dual SIM version of Galaxy Ace Duos
When we talk about low and mid range Android handsets, we cannot deny that Samsung is playing a very important role by bringing several new models for those who cannot afford a high end smartphone. As you might already know that Samsung is preparing to release the Galaxy Ace 2 very soon, the original Galaxy Ace has also been one of the most popular mid range Android handset since its launch. Today, Samsung has introduced another Ace handset and it is named as Samsung Galaxy Ace DUOS.
Dual Sim Smartphone
Of course, as you might have figured it out by the name, Galaxy Ace Duos will be featuring dual SIM slot. Previously Samsung announced similar device but that supported CDMA+GSM networks but this device here is GSM only. So, you will be able to enjoy two different carrier deals on the same smartphone with all your favorite apps and stuff. Well, there is a downside in this handset as well, once you are in call on one of the SIMs, the other one will be deactivated for that time.
Not Much Difference Between Galaxy Ace & Galaxy Ace Duos
Overall, there are not many differences in the Galaxy Ace Duos and the original Galaxy Ace device. Ace Duos will be featuring the same 3.5 inch screen with HVGA resolution and it will be coming with an 832 Mhz single core processor under the hood along with 512MB of RAM. On the back side you will find a 5MP camera while the device will be running on Android 2.3 Gingerbread. So, overall, it has all the qualities of an affordable handset and of course with the addition of the dual SIM slot.
Samsung will start rolling out Galaxy Ace Duos in June in Russia and after that the device will hit the shelves in Europe, CIS, Latin America, Southeast and Southwest Asia, Middle East, Africa and China.
Well, we can say that it is going to be the best dual SIM handset available in the market. Previously, dual SIM feature was only included in the ultra low cost handsets but now this trend is being adapted in the advanced handsets as well.
And considering the fact that the older product is priced at Rs 13,900 (on the Samsung eStore), the new device should be priced in a similar range. Since the company has chosen to use the same name for both the devices it can be a little confusing for the buyer, so don’t forget to mention GSM+GSM or GSM+CDMA while purchasing the device.
Gulf remittances soar as rupee weakens
A weakening rupee has brought much cheer to expats living abroad and the large Indian population in the Gulf couldn’t be happier. Remitting a large part of their salary back to India, they are happy as this now converts into more rupees back home.
According to informed sources, banks in the city have seen as much as a 50% increase in their monthly appreciation as Indians are clamoring to send more money back. The more enterprising ones are even seeking advances and transferring the same to India.
There are more than six million Indian expats in six countries of the Gulf area of which 15 lakh are estimated to be from Andhra Pradesh. Most of them are in blue collar jobs. Those in high paying white collar jobs are now seeking advances on paychecks while the business community is reportedly remitting a bulk of their savings.
GRC Prasad Sai, in-charge NRI cell at State Bank of Hyderabad, told TOI that the rise and fall of rupee dictates the amount of remittance. Terming the high remittances as one of the factors for increase in their inflows, he says, “Ever since the interest rates for NRIs were deregulated in December last year, we have seen a growth. But an increase of Rs 30 crore in the month-on-month growth on our base in April when compared to March, gives a strong indication that remittances have increased. Given the situation and anticipatory effect of rupee further weakening, the trend may continue,” he predicted.
M Bheem Reddy, vice-president, Migrants Rights Council, notes that the rupee value is of great interest to both the white collar and blue collar employees. “The depreciation in rupee is always welcomed by expats. Since the value of Gulf currencies does not change with dollar, both the appreciation and depreciation are absorbed completely by the expatriates. When the rupee gained significantly in the past, workers were known to have protested demanding a hike in salary, which happened in 2008 in Dubai,” he said.
The joy in the depreciating rupee is however not without caution. K Anjaneyulu, manger with Xpress Money, a money transfer organization in Dubai says, “The AED (Arab Emirates Dhiram) is now Rs 15 and that is reason enough to be happy. But the recent hike in cost of petrol and double digit inflation can nullify any gains that we make abroad. Given the continuous increase in cost of living here and the scope for the rupee to appreciate in the near future, our profit making could be short lived,” he said.
Your password problems solved
You want to create lengthy, complicated and unique passwords for every website that you use but that rarely happens in practice because these complex strings would be nearly impossible for anyone to remember.
Most people thus rely on password management software that encrypt and store all your passwords in a database which is protected by a single password. You enter that master password and you instantly have access to all your stored user logins and passwords.
There’s however another solution as well that will help you generate unique passwords for all your online accounts but without storing the passwords anywhere – neither online nor on your computer. It’s called Password Chameleon.
With Password Chameleon, all you have to do is remember one master password. You enter the site’s domain name (say gmail.com) and your master password (say He!!0WorId) and tool will instantly create a password by mashing these two strings. Every time you enter your master password and the web domain, the tool will generate the same password.
The good thing is that passwords are generated locally on your computer and while all your online accounts will have unique passwords, you will have to remember just one master password. Also, Password Chameleon uses the SHA-1 Algorithm to generate your passwords (aka hashes) and it impossible to decrypt the master password from the generated hashes.
The downside is that this method isn’t a very practical solution for people who could be maintaining multiple accounts on the same website. The web app and browser extensions are free though the mobile apps cost a little less than $2.
How To Upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04 for Desktops & Servers running 10.04 or 11.10
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is the version of the Ubuntu operating system released on April 26th, 2012. The common name given to this release is “Precise Pangolin”.
If you have any 3rd party propriatory graphics card drivers installed it is recommended you remove them prior to the upgrade process to avoid any problems during the update, you can reinstalled them after the upgrade has completed.
Always take a backup before carrying out an operating system upgrade!
How To Upgrade to 12.04 Desktop using the GUI
How to Upgrade from 11.10 to 12.o4 for Desktops using Update Manager
If Ubuntu fails to prompt you to upgrade to 12.04 Desktop you can run the update manager process manually, note these instructions are for 11.10 to 12.04 only.
- Run the Update Manager application from the Unity Dash
- In Update Manager, click on “Settings” and enter your password to start the Software Sources application
- Select the sub menu Updates from the Software Sources application
- Check the “Release upgrade - Show new distribution releases” drop down to make sure “Normal releases” is selected, and change it if otherwise
- Close the Software Sources application and return to Update Manager
- In Update Manager, click the Check button to check for new updates.
- If there are any updates to install, use the Install Updates button to install them, and press Check again after that is complete
- A message will appear informing you of the availability of the new release
- Click Upgrade
- Follow the on-screen instructions
Upgrade from 10.04 to 12.o4 for Desktops using Update Manager
The following instructions are for 10.04 to 12.04 Desktop upgrades, this uses a network installation using update manager, please only use these instructions for 10.04 to 12.04 desktops.
- Open the Update Manager application from the System → Administration menu
- In Update Manager, click the “Settings…”, and enter your password to start the Software Sources application
- Select the sub menu Updates from the Software Sources application
- Check the “Release upgrade - Show new distribution releases” drop down to make sure “Long term support releases only” is selected, and change it if otherwise
- Close the Software Sources application and return to Update Manager
- In Update Manager, click the Check button to check for new updates
- If there are any updates to install, use the Install Updates button to install them, and press Check again after that is complete
- A message will appear informing you of the availability of the new release
- Click Upgrade
- Follow the on-screen instructions
Ubuntu Server upgrade to 12.04 using the command line
This is my preferred method of upgrading to 12.04 as it can be ran over SSH or on any version of Ubuntu Server.
To start off with make sure update-manager-core is installed and fully up to date:
sudo apt-get install update-manager-core
Edit the file /etc/update-manager/release-upgrades and add set:
Prompt=normal
Start the upgrade process:
sudo do-release-upgrade
Google Drive launches with 5GB of free space, emphasis on collaboration
After months of speculations and leaks, Google yesterday officially released Google Drive, its cloud storage and collaboration service. Google Drive will offer 5GB of free online storage, which will be linked to the user’s Google account (including Google+ and Google Apps for business accounts).
While Google Drive will certainly compete with similar cloud storage apps like Dropbox, Box.net and SkyDrive, the real target for Google is Microsoft. Rather than baking it as a pure cloud storage service, Google has integrated it with Google Docs or if I may, Google Docs has been integrated into Google Drive. It has an installable app for desktop (Windows and Mac) as well as an Android app for smartphones and tablets. An iOS app is also on the way. Google is marketing Drive as a collaboration tool where users can do much more than just store files.
With Google Drive, users can not only edit stored documents but also search within scanned documents in PDF or photographs using Optical Character Recognition service or even search for photographs using Google Goggles. In a future update, users will be able to save attachments directly to Google Drive from their Gmail accounts. Google is also talking about apps that will enable users to do much more on Google Drive, for instance editing videos using WeVideo. You can check out more apps for Google Drive here.
If 5GB is not enough, users can also buy more space starting from $2.49/month for 25GB, $4.99 per month for 100GB or $49,99 for 1TB! We are currently trying out Google Drive and will be coming up with our first impressions shortly. While Google Drive might not put Dropbox and the likes out of business (yet), it will certainly make their staying alive a little difficult
New 7-inch tablet for just Rs.5,399!
Giving competition to the government’s Aakash tablet, Telmoco Development Labs Pvt. has come out with a Tablet PC – Attitude Daksha – a 7-inch tablet variant for Rs.5,399 inclusive of all taxes.
Attitude Daksha, touted as the most powerful 7-inch tablet computer for students and professionals, was launched here Tuesday.
Technopark Technology Business Incubator (T-TBIC) incubated Telmoco plans to compete in the low-cost tablet PC market where the government-launched Aakash tablet is prominent.
Daksha features Capacitive 5 point touch screen with 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor with 512 MB DDR3 RAM. It has a HDMI port, Micro SD slot, 3.5 mm audio out, Micro USB port and having OTG connector for 3G Dongle and RJ 45lAN cable.
Daksha is capable of 1080p full HD video streaming and has dedicated 400 MHzGPU for advanced flash Apps, Interactive Apps and full HD videos. Daksha is powered by 3,800 mAh li-Pol battery which gives a back up of over 6 hours with WiFi on.
“Even though the Indian media tablets market witnessed high decibel launches by the world’s leading vendors, the Tablet PC market in India is a niche market that is quickly picking up the pace in terms of adoption,” said C.R. Nijesh, chairman and executive director, Telmoco at the launch.
Telmoco Development labs Pvt ltd is a company initiated in electronics research and mobile technologies.
Attitude Daksha is initially set off to launch at schools, professional institutions, and corporate houses and will be available in the market from May 15. It can be ordered online from Telmoco website.
New ‘affordable’ BlackBerry smartphone launched in India
Research in Motion (RIM) on Wednesday launched in India what it called its “most affordable” BlackBerry smartphone, part of an aggressive push in one of its few growing markets.
The new Curve 9220 is priced in India at 10,990 rupees, higher than the price of Curve 8520, which is RIM’s best-selling phone in India, and comes with an introductory offer to download free applications worth 2,500 rupees.
Key Features
- Quad Band
- QWERTY keyboard
BlackBerry Curve 8520
With the new 8520, BlackBerry is targeting mainstream users rather than those who would traditionally buy a smartphone. This is reflected in it’s price as the handset will be available for free on 2500 rupees a month contracts or alternatively pay as you go users will be able to get their hands on it for around 10,990 rupees, which is pretty cheap by smartphone standards.RIM, which will start selling the new phone in India on Thursday, will launch it in a number of other countries in coming weeks, Carlo Chiarello, executive vice president of RIM’s smartphone division, told reporters.
The BlackBerry Curve 9220 has a dedicated key for accessing BlackBerry Messenger and FM radio, along with a 2 mega pixel camera, and works on second-generation mobile networks.
RIM’s BlackBerry devices have struggled to compete with Apple Inc’s iPhone and iPad and a slew of devices based on Google’s Android platform, and the Canadian company reported a quarterly loss last month as sales of its phones slumped.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Good price
- Excellent QWERTY keyboard
- Great email support
Cons
- Lacks 3G
- Light on features
- Disappointing camera
RIM has also sensibly added a standard 3.5mm headphone/headset jack so if you don’t like the supplied headset you can swap it for your own cans, although you’ll lose the hands-free functionality. The addition of a standard headset jack is welcome, but RIM has annoyingly placed it on the left edge of the phone rather than at the top with the result that lead tends to snag when you’re taking the handset in and out of your pocket.
On the plus side the 35-key backlit QWERTY keyboard is excellent as ever. The keys may be small, but as they’re slightly raised they’re easy to hit with your fingers and thumbs so tapping out emails is not a problem. The transmissive screen is also nice and bright making videos and pictures look surprisingly vivid. However, at 2.46in it’s relatively small by today’s smartphone standards and only has a resolution 320 x 240 pixels so it feels a tad cramped when you’re using the web browser. The handset itself measures 109mm in height, 60mm in width and 13.9mm in depth, and weighs in at 106g.
